From Seattle to San Diego, there are many vibrant opera companies on the west coast of the United States.
Where have you been? What are you looking forward to?
Where have you been? What are you looking forward to?
Nice! I am going back to Seattle in a few months and will see Seattle Opera for the first time. I am really looking forward to it, and will be sure to comment after.In 2012 I went to Seattle Opera to see Attila with John Relyea.
I know a number of great music halls around the world use Meyer Sound systems - including Concertgebouw, Musikverein, Teatro Colon, as well as Davies Symphony Hall - but they do so (to my understanding) when incorporating electronics or spoken text in their otherwise acoustic performances. They aren't fixing a disastrous acoustic space by always using amplification.The room can be configured in a variety of ways, and the challenging acoustic - the 30-foot-high ceiling is great for monumental physical artworks but less forgiving on the human voice - is rectified by an acoustic system of 24 microphones and 75 loudspeakers discreetly placed to adjust reverberation. Made by Berkeley-based Meyer Sound, the system can be optimized for, among other things, spoken text versus sung lyrics just by tapping on a screen.
That's good to know. These have had some fantastic reviews.Local classical station KDFC broadcasts and then streams recordings from San Francisco Opera (and the SF Symphony). Opera performances typically show up several months after the performances, and remain for a month after airing.
Recently available is SFO's Usher double bill from December (which I reviewed); Gordon Getty's The Fall of the House of Usher and Claude Debussy's La chute de la maison Usher, in Robert Orledge's completion. I really did not enjoy the former (here available as part 1) but I really liked the latter (part 2).
It might be the fall before SFO's summer season of Carmen, Jenůfa, and Don Carlo are broadcast.
On Elektra:SAN FRANCISCO, CA (January 17, 2017) - San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock and Music Director Nicola Luisotti today announced plans for the 2017-18 repertory season. The Company's 95th season will open Friday, September 8 with a gala performance of Giacomo Puccini's Turandot led by Maestro Luisotti and an international cast starring Martina Serafin, Maria Agresta and Brian Jagde. On the occasion of this special evening, San Francisco Opera Guild will produce their signature event Opera Ball 2017, presented in honor of Nicola Luisotti, who concludes his tenure as the Company's music director at the end of the 2017-18 Season.
San Francisco Opera's new season features the highly anticipated world premiere of Girls of the Golden West by composer John Adams; the return of Francesca Zambello's production of Richard Wagner's epic tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung); bold new productions of Richard Strauss' gripping music drama Elektra and Jules Massenet's sensual Manon; and revivals of Giacomo Puccini's Turandot and Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata. All performances will be presented at the War Memorial Opera House.
SF Chronicle has more details; eventually I'll be able to link to the press release.On September 9, Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's 1909 opera Elektra surges back onto the War Memorial Opera House stage for the first time in two decades in a provocative new production by celebrated English director Keith Warner. This psychologically complex and vocally formidable opera requires lyric artists of the first rank and San Francisco Opera has assembled a superlative cast that includes soprano Christine Goerke, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe and soprano Adrianne Pieczonka, along with bass-baritone Alfred Walker in his Company debut and tenor Robert Brubaker. The staging of this co-production with the National Theatre in Prague and the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe will be directed in revival by Anja Kühnhold. The creative team features the work of set designer Boris Kudli?ka, costume designerKaspar Glarner, lighting designer John Bishop and video designer Bartek Macias.